EMC Corp. Monday is set to unveil a hosted backup and recovery service based on technology gained from its $76 million acquisition of Berkeley Data Systems in September.
The new MozyEnterprise software-as-a-service product is the first offering in EMC's new Fortress line of hosted software. MozyEnterprise will provide subscription-based online backup and recovery services for remote PCs and remote Windows Server environments, EMC said.
Roy Sanford, vice president for EMC's new SaaS business unit, noted that files stored in the hosted system will be encrypted before they are stored on EMS host servers.
The MozyEnterprise for PC and laptop devices is priced at $5.25 a month plus 70 cents a month per gigabyte stored. For servers, the monthly price jumps to $9.25 plus $2.35 per gigabyte stored, noted Sanford. The service is available now in the U.S., he said.
The MozyEnterprise service combines three Mozy online backup products -- MozyHome, MozyPro and MozyEnterprise -- that EMC gained with its acquisition of Berkeley.
Currently, EMC is managing 5 petabytes of Mozy storage for more than 500,000 devices.
The new SaaS application will be hosted by EMC and sold by the company along with resellers like Verizon Business and Broadview Networks. The offering is targeted at home users, small-to-midsize companies and large enterprises, remarked Sanford.
Since the acquisition, several features have been added to the acquired Mozy technology, Sanford said. Those include RSA Security authentication, authorization and key-management capabilities and a physical data-seeding option that saves users time and bandwidth by storing the information on a hard drive that's uploaded directly by EMC onto its hosted systems. In addition, he said, the support operation has been beefed up.
Aimable Mugara, IT director for the nonprofit Free The Children organization in Toronto, said the data-seeding option should be a huge benefit to companies worried about clogging up bandwidth or spending long hours transitioning from physical to online storage. Mugara, who has been using MozyPro for six months to back up 1TB of data from his organization every two to three days, said he hopes that EMC's enhancements and improved support come as advertised.
Mugara said that as a much larger company, EMC should be able to provide better support than Berkeley.
Mugara, who is responsible for an IT operation serving a workforce scattered across the world, said online backup offers him a sense of comfort that critical project information is always accessible and will never fall victim to lost or stolen devices.
In fact, according to Framingham, Mass.-based IDC, the case for online backup is becoming stronger for companies of all sizes. The research firm predicts that sales of hosted backup storage services will reach $715 million in 2011, up from $235 million in 2007.
The Mozy client software can be autoinstalled on each device under administrator control, EMC said. Data backups sent to EMC servers can be managed via a Web-based console over Internet Explorer. Restore options for recovering data include online, client-based, DVD, hard drive and virtual drive, said Sanford.
Sanford refused to elaborate on future SaaS offerings from Fortress. However, he did say that over time, EMC will entertain the idea of connecting third-party applications to its fledgling Fortress platform. Sanford said that at least in the near term, EMC does not envision Fortress competing against Amazon.com's Simple Storage Service hosted product, which is used by service providers to offer backup and other types of online services.
"We do not see ourselves in what we're announcing as an S3 competitor," he said. "[But] in the long-term scope, we never say never."
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Yahoo to lay off hundreds
Yahoo will announce plans to lay off hundreds of its 14,000 employees as the faltering Internet giant continues trying to snap out of its financial funk and fine tune its business strategies, several media outlets are reporting.
Yahoo will let go hundreds of staffers as part of its ongoing efforts to improve its profitability and compete against Google, Facebook, MySpace and others, according to articles in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal that cited anonymous sources.
However, the Journal said that Yahoo will hire new employees in other areas and that it plans to finish the year with about the same amount of employees it had at the end of 2007.
If Yahoo does in fact keep its headcount at last year's level, then the layoffs will probably be seen as a rebalancing of staff and less as a sign of financial distress at the company.
A Yahoo spokeswoman contacted by IDG News Service declined to comment about layoff plans but said in an e-mailed statement that, as part of its multiyear transformation plan, the company plans to "invest in some areas, reduce emphasis in others, and eliminate some areas of the business," based on its priorities.
"Yahoo continues to attract and hire talent against the company's key initiatives to create long-term stockholder value," she said on Tuesday.
Yahoo is still deciding the extent of the layoffs and the areas that will be affected, and it will likely announce concrete plans to reduce staff next Tuesday when it issues its fourth-quarter earnings report, the Times and the Journal reported.
Whatever ends up happening with the reported staff cuts, it's undeniable that Yahoo is still very much in reorganization and recovery mode.
Once viewed as a dominant provider of online advertising and consumer Internet services, Yahoo has in recent years looked out of sync with the latest technical innovations and business opportunities. For starters, it let Google run away with the market for Internet search and advertising, and failed to develop a leading social-networking site, letting MySpace and Facebook capitalize on that opportunity. Yahoo also largely missed the online video revolution, which Google latched on to with its YouTube acquisition.
Along the way, its sales and profits have been disappointing for the past two years, leading to several management shakeups in late 2006 and 2007.
By far, the most dramatic happened in June, when co-founder Jerry Yang took over as CEO and chairman from Terry Semel. At the time, Susan Decker, former chief financial officer and head of Yahoo's advertiser and publisher group, became president.
A week after Semel's demotion to non-executive chairman, Yahoo combined its search and display advertising sales teams in the U.S. It was an attempt to extend the company's long-standing, core display advertising client relationships to the pay-per-click business, which generates about 40 percent of the industry's online advertising and is dominated by Google.
In August, Yahoo again shook up its top management ranks when it announced that its top sales executive would leave and that a new global sales organization had been created.
In December 2006, Semel had rolled out a major reorganization, creating three main business units to focus on Yahoo's key customer segments: consumers, advertisers and publishers. At the time, Semel also announced that Dan Rosensweig, then chief operating officer, would leave the company.
That reorganization was preceded by a widely publicized internal memo that was leaked to the media in November and came to be known as the Peanut Butter Manifesto. In the scathing memo, Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo's senior vice president of communications and communities, called for a major reorganization, saying the company lacked "a focused, cohesive vision" that had made it "reactive" and eager to be "everything to everyone."
Since the uproar over the Peanut Butter Manifesto and the ensuing shakeups, Yahoo has seen quite a few changes in its upper management ranks. In addition to Semel's demotion and Rosensweig's departure, also gone are Wenda Harris Millard, who was chief sales officer, and Chief Technology Officer Farzad Nazem. In June, The New York Times reported that, in addition to these executives, at least 17 others at vice president level or higher had left Yahoo since the December 2006 reorganization.
Yahoo will let go hundreds of staffers as part of its ongoing efforts to improve its profitability and compete against Google, Facebook, MySpace and others, according to articles in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal that cited anonymous sources.
However, the Journal said that Yahoo will hire new employees in other areas and that it plans to finish the year with about the same amount of employees it had at the end of 2007.
If Yahoo does in fact keep its headcount at last year's level, then the layoffs will probably be seen as a rebalancing of staff and less as a sign of financial distress at the company.
A Yahoo spokeswoman contacted by IDG News Service declined to comment about layoff plans but said in an e-mailed statement that, as part of its multiyear transformation plan, the company plans to "invest in some areas, reduce emphasis in others, and eliminate some areas of the business," based on its priorities.
"Yahoo continues to attract and hire talent against the company's key initiatives to create long-term stockholder value," she said on Tuesday.
Yahoo is still deciding the extent of the layoffs and the areas that will be affected, and it will likely announce concrete plans to reduce staff next Tuesday when it issues its fourth-quarter earnings report, the Times and the Journal reported.
Whatever ends up happening with the reported staff cuts, it's undeniable that Yahoo is still very much in reorganization and recovery mode.
Once viewed as a dominant provider of online advertising and consumer Internet services, Yahoo has in recent years looked out of sync with the latest technical innovations and business opportunities. For starters, it let Google run away with the market for Internet search and advertising, and failed to develop a leading social-networking site, letting MySpace and Facebook capitalize on that opportunity. Yahoo also largely missed the online video revolution, which Google latched on to with its YouTube acquisition.
Along the way, its sales and profits have been disappointing for the past two years, leading to several management shakeups in late 2006 and 2007.
By far, the most dramatic happened in June, when co-founder Jerry Yang took over as CEO and chairman from Terry Semel. At the time, Susan Decker, former chief financial officer and head of Yahoo's advertiser and publisher group, became president.
A week after Semel's demotion to non-executive chairman, Yahoo combined its search and display advertising sales teams in the U.S. It was an attempt to extend the company's long-standing, core display advertising client relationships to the pay-per-click business, which generates about 40 percent of the industry's online advertising and is dominated by Google.
In August, Yahoo again shook up its top management ranks when it announced that its top sales executive would leave and that a new global sales organization had been created.
In December 2006, Semel had rolled out a major reorganization, creating three main business units to focus on Yahoo's key customer segments: consumers, advertisers and publishers. At the time, Semel also announced that Dan Rosensweig, then chief operating officer, would leave the company.
That reorganization was preceded by a widely publicized internal memo that was leaked to the media in November and came to be known as the Peanut Butter Manifesto. In the scathing memo, Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo's senior vice president of communications and communities, called for a major reorganization, saying the company lacked "a focused, cohesive vision" that had made it "reactive" and eager to be "everything to everyone."
Since the uproar over the Peanut Butter Manifesto and the ensuing shakeups, Yahoo has seen quite a few changes in its upper management ranks. In addition to Semel's demotion and Rosensweig's departure, also gone are Wenda Harris Millard, who was chief sales officer, and Chief Technology Officer Farzad Nazem. In June, The New York Times reported that, in addition to these executives, at least 17 others at vice president level or higher had left Yahoo since the December 2006 reorganization.
Intel offers first dual-core Celeron processor
Intel is shipping a dual-core Celeron processor, the first low-end desktop processor from the company to ship with two cores.
The 1.6GHz Celeron Dual-Core E1200 processor is based on Intel's Core microprocessor architecture and is manufactured using a 65-nanometer process. The chip has 512K bytes of cache and uses an 800MHz front-side bus to connect with main memory and other components inside the PC.
Intel is selling the Celeron Dual-Core E1200 chips for $53 each, in quantities of 1,000 units.
The release of the E1200 underscores how prevalent dual-core chips have become. The Celeron family is the low end of Intel's mainstream processor range, below the mid-range Pentium family and top-end Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad lines. The release of the Celeron E1200 means Intel now has multi-core processors in each of these product families.
Intel already offers a range of dual-core chips in its Pentium line: the 1.6GHz Pentium Dual-Core E2140, 1.8GHz Pentium Dual-Core E2160, 2GHz Pentium Dual-Core E2180, and the 2.2GHz Pentium Dual-Core E2200. The Pentium Dual-Core chips are priced from $64 to $84, in 1,000 unit quantities,
The 1.6GHz Celeron Dual-Core E1200 processor is based on Intel's Core microprocessor architecture and is manufactured using a 65-nanometer process. The chip has 512K bytes of cache and uses an 800MHz front-side bus to connect with main memory and other components inside the PC.
Intel is selling the Celeron Dual-Core E1200 chips for $53 each, in quantities of 1,000 units.
The release of the E1200 underscores how prevalent dual-core chips have become. The Celeron family is the low end of Intel's mainstream processor range, below the mid-range Pentium family and top-end Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad lines. The release of the Celeron E1200 means Intel now has multi-core processors in each of these product families.
Intel already offers a range of dual-core chips in its Pentium line: the 1.6GHz Pentium Dual-Core E2140, 1.8GHz Pentium Dual-Core E2160, 2GHz Pentium Dual-Core E2180, and the 2.2GHz Pentium Dual-Core E2200. The Pentium Dual-Core chips are priced from $64 to $84, in 1,000 unit quantities,
IBM to make 'aggressive' run at SMBs
IBM is developing a new, "one-stop-shop" product offering, Lotus Foundations, aimed at companies with five to 500 employees, it said Monday.
Lotus Foundations will consist of on-premise software servers sold primarily through partners. IBM is also developing a set of accompanying Web-hosted services, now available in a beta version.
The company plans to bundle Lotus Domino, file management, directory services, firewall, backup and productivity tools in the initial offering of Lotus Foundations. Customers who need more power will be able to bring on additional servers, according to IBM. The company's partner community will also be able to integrate their own applications into the core platform.
The server software sold under Foundations will be autonomic or "self-healing," and therefore appropriate for small companies without paid IT staffers, IBM said.
Foundations will be the home of technology IBM acquired through its purchase last week of Net Integration Technologies. That deal is set to close later this year.
"Net Integration is a key part of our strategy here. That's why we bought them," said Mike Rhodin, general manager of Lotus, during a press conference Monday at IBM's Lotusphere show in Orlando, Florida.
IBM did not release pricing information on Monday, but Rhodin indicated the company plans to compete vigorously for market share.
"Our intent as we price the Foundations offering, to be blunt, is to be very aggressive," Rhodin said. "The total value we'll put around the solution is going to be pretty big for the customer and we're going to leave some room in there for the partner to make some money."
The Web-hosted services, on the other hand, will focus on helping businesses collaborate with each other, such as through contact and file sharing, or online chat and Web meetings. Interested users can register for the beta test at bluehouse.lotus.com.
The Bluehouse beta test represents a chance for IBM to fine-tune the economics of selling software as a service, according to Rhodin. "You don't find a lot of profitable software-as-a-service companies. The business model is in evolution," he said. "Our approach is going to be to work with partners and the marketplace to find out the best solution for them."
Also Monday, IBM and SAP said they are codeveloping a software product under the codename "Atlantic," which will integrate IBM's Lotus Notes collaboration and office productivity software with SAP's Business Suite.
The Atlantic project represents a further deepening of the long-standing relationship between IBM and SAP.
"We think the timing is just right," Rhodin said. "The timing for collaboration and business systems to come together is right now."
The first release of Atlantic is expected to ship in the fourth quarter of this year, and will feature support for SAP workflows, reporting and analytics. It will also include the ability to use roles from within the Lotus Notes client, and tools for expanding these core capabilities, IBM said in a statement.
Lotus Foundations will consist of on-premise software servers sold primarily through partners. IBM is also developing a set of accompanying Web-hosted services, now available in a beta version.
The company plans to bundle Lotus Domino, file management, directory services, firewall, backup and productivity tools in the initial offering of Lotus Foundations. Customers who need more power will be able to bring on additional servers, according to IBM. The company's partner community will also be able to integrate their own applications into the core platform.
The server software sold under Foundations will be autonomic or "self-healing," and therefore appropriate for small companies without paid IT staffers, IBM said.
Foundations will be the home of technology IBM acquired through its purchase last week of Net Integration Technologies. That deal is set to close later this year.
"Net Integration is a key part of our strategy here. That's why we bought them," said Mike Rhodin, general manager of Lotus, during a press conference Monday at IBM's Lotusphere show in Orlando, Florida.
IBM did not release pricing information on Monday, but Rhodin indicated the company plans to compete vigorously for market share.
"Our intent as we price the Foundations offering, to be blunt, is to be very aggressive," Rhodin said. "The total value we'll put around the solution is going to be pretty big for the customer and we're going to leave some room in there for the partner to make some money."
The Web-hosted services, on the other hand, will focus on helping businesses collaborate with each other, such as through contact and file sharing, or online chat and Web meetings. Interested users can register for the beta test at bluehouse.lotus.com.
The Bluehouse beta test represents a chance for IBM to fine-tune the economics of selling software as a service, according to Rhodin. "You don't find a lot of profitable software-as-a-service companies. The business model is in evolution," he said. "Our approach is going to be to work with partners and the marketplace to find out the best solution for them."
Also Monday, IBM and SAP said they are codeveloping a software product under the codename "Atlantic," which will integrate IBM's Lotus Notes collaboration and office productivity software with SAP's Business Suite.
The Atlantic project represents a further deepening of the long-standing relationship between IBM and SAP.
"We think the timing is just right," Rhodin said. "The timing for collaboration and business systems to come together is right now."
The first release of Atlantic is expected to ship in the fourth quarter of this year, and will feature support for SAP workflows, reporting and analytics. It will also include the ability to use roles from within the Lotus Notes client, and tools for expanding these core capabilities, IBM said in a statement.
Dell launches new PowerEdge blade servers
Dell is expected on Monday to add a new series of blade products to its PowerEdge server line, expanding its presence in a market dominated by rivals IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
The PowerEdge M-Series of blades includes the fastest-performing and most power-efficient blade servers the company has, said Mike Roberts, senior product planning manager for Dell.
The PowerEdge M1000E, a 10U enclosure, will support the new Intel-based PowerEdge M600 and Advanced Micro Devices-based PowerEdge M605 blade servers, also announced Monday.
The M1000E enclosure supports a range of network connectivity options, including modules for Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand connectivity. The enclosure allows customers to upgrade or stack up on network hardware to boost networking speed.
The PowerEdge M600 blade server is a dual-socket server that supports up to two quad-core Intel Xeon processors, including processors in the Xeon 5400 series running at up to 3.16GHz. The dual-socket PowerEdge M605 servers support dual-core Opteron 2000 series processors running at up to 3GHz. Both blades support Windows Server 2003 and Linux OSes.
Targeted at data centers, the PowerEdge M1000E enclosure is priced at US$5,999, and the blades start at $1,849. The products will be available worldwide starting Monday.
Dell's OpenManage systems management technology, which will be bundled with the blades, includes energy management tools. Capabilities include real-time power reporting and the ability to set power usage by blade.
Power efficiency in blade servers is an important consideration for those looking to upgrade data centers, said Richard Doherty, cofounder and director of Envisioneering Group. Energy costs have become a big factor in considering hardware for data centers, and companies are taking a closer look at reducing their carbon footprints, Doherty said.
"Going greener can be a reason for an upgrade," Doherty said.
The new blade server gives Dell an opportunity to catch up with HP and IBM blade products, especially in small data centers, Doherty said. Dell's PowerEdge M-Series will compete with IBM's BladeCenter H and HP's BladeSystem c-Class blades.
In addition, the new blade servers will need strong management tools in order to succeed, Doherty said. Dell in the past has announced service and support initiatives that haven't panned out, and the company's OpenManage system management tools are not as strong as autonomic computing offerings from HP and IBM, Doherty said.
System management is a big concern for data centers, and customers are looking for the ability to manage systems without the need for additional IT engineers, Doherty said.
The PowerEdge M-Series of blades includes the fastest-performing and most power-efficient blade servers the company has, said Mike Roberts, senior product planning manager for Dell.
The PowerEdge M1000E, a 10U enclosure, will support the new Intel-based PowerEdge M600 and Advanced Micro Devices-based PowerEdge M605 blade servers, also announced Monday.
The M1000E enclosure supports a range of network connectivity options, including modules for Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand connectivity. The enclosure allows customers to upgrade or stack up on network hardware to boost networking speed.
The PowerEdge M600 blade server is a dual-socket server that supports up to two quad-core Intel Xeon processors, including processors in the Xeon 5400 series running at up to 3.16GHz. The dual-socket PowerEdge M605 servers support dual-core Opteron 2000 series processors running at up to 3GHz. Both blades support Windows Server 2003 and Linux OSes.
Targeted at data centers, the PowerEdge M1000E enclosure is priced at US$5,999, and the blades start at $1,849. The products will be available worldwide starting Monday.
Dell's OpenManage systems management technology, which will be bundled with the blades, includes energy management tools. Capabilities include real-time power reporting and the ability to set power usage by blade.
Power efficiency in blade servers is an important consideration for those looking to upgrade data centers, said Richard Doherty, cofounder and director of Envisioneering Group. Energy costs have become a big factor in considering hardware for data centers, and companies are taking a closer look at reducing their carbon footprints, Doherty said.
"Going greener can be a reason for an upgrade," Doherty said.
The new blade server gives Dell an opportunity to catch up with HP and IBM blade products, especially in small data centers, Doherty said. Dell's PowerEdge M-Series will compete with IBM's BladeCenter H and HP's BladeSystem c-Class blades.
In addition, the new blade servers will need strong management tools in order to succeed, Doherty said. Dell in the past has announced service and support initiatives that haven't panned out, and the company's OpenManage system management tools are not as strong as autonomic computing offerings from HP and IBM, Doherty said.
System management is a big concern for data centers, and customers are looking for the ability to manage systems without the need for additional IT engineers, Doherty said.
Sanyo to sell mobile phone unit to Kyocera
Japan's Sanyo is selling its mobile phone business to Kyocera as part of its ongoing restructuring, it said Monday.
The deal values the unit and its assets, which includes Sanyo's CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) handset business and base station business, at ¥50 billion (US$468 million). However the total value of the unit drops to about ¥40 billion once debts have been taken into account. The transfer is expected to take place on April 1.
As part of the agreement Kyocera will be able to use the Sanyo brand on cell phones sold in Japan and North America, Sanyo's main markets.
The two companies have been working on the deal since they signed a tentative agreement in October last year.
The deal values the unit and its assets, which includes Sanyo's CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) handset business and base station business, at ¥50 billion (US$468 million). However the total value of the unit drops to about ¥40 billion once debts have been taken into account. The transfer is expected to take place on April 1.
As part of the agreement Kyocera will be able to use the Sanyo brand on cell phones sold in Japan and North America, Sanyo's main markets.
The two companies have been working on the deal since they signed a tentative agreement in October last year.
Group points to VOIP flaw in DSL home gateway
A flaw in a DSL home gateway could lead broadband users to divulge personal information over the phone to someone they erroneously believe is calling from their bank, according to a group of self-styled ethical hackers.
BT's Home Hub, issued to the company's U.K. broadband subscribers, has an authentication vulnerability that enables a Web site rigged with malicious JavaScript to initiate a phone call, according to the group, GNUCitizen.
"We can tell your Home Hub to start a VOIP connection with any telephone number on the planet," said Adrian Pastor in a video posted on the group's blog.
Those at risk are subscribers using BT Home Hub firmware version 6.2.6.B with BT's Broadband Talk VOIP service, Pastor said.
For a successful attack, a person has to be lured to a Web site hosting the malicious JavaScript. That could be accomplished by sending a fraudulent e-mail from the person's bank saying he should to click on the link, which launches the JavaScript, said researcher Petko Petkov, in the same video.
Clicking on the link starts the attack. The victim's phone rings, and the gateway then initiates a call to another phone number. The victim thinks he is receiving a call, but actually he is making a VOIP call from his home gateway.
There are at least a couple scenarios for how a hacker could capitalize on the flaw. If the broadband subscriber thinks he is receiving a call from his bank, the person on the other end could persuade the victim to give up his bank account numbers.
The attacker could also make the victim's computer call a premium-rate phone line controlled by the hacker, who would receive a fee every time the number is called.
Pastor posted proof-of-concept code for the attack on a Web page. However, it wasn't immediately apparent if it works, as visitors would have to use BT's Home Hub with the correct software version.
BT said it's unlikely that the attack scenarios described by Pastor and Petkov could affect its customers, and no customers have reported such an attack, a BT spokesman said.
Nevertheless, the company is in the process of rolling out a patch that is automatically installed by the Home Hub, the spokesman said.
Pastor's public disclosure of the flaw on the blog is "highly irresponsible," the spokesman said.
How vulnerabilities are disclosed has often pitted security researchers -- and other proficient coders who drift more toward the hacking side -- against companies whose products or services are affected. GNUCitizen describes itself on its Web site as an "ethical hacker outfit."
Efforts to reach Pastor were unsuccessful.
BT's Home Hub, issued to the company's U.K. broadband subscribers, has an authentication vulnerability that enables a Web site rigged with malicious JavaScript to initiate a phone call, according to the group, GNUCitizen.
"We can tell your Home Hub to start a VOIP connection with any telephone number on the planet," said Adrian Pastor in a video posted on the group's blog.
Those at risk are subscribers using BT Home Hub firmware version 6.2.6.B with BT's Broadband Talk VOIP service, Pastor said.
For a successful attack, a person has to be lured to a Web site hosting the malicious JavaScript. That could be accomplished by sending a fraudulent e-mail from the person's bank saying he should to click on the link, which launches the JavaScript, said researcher Petko Petkov, in the same video.
Clicking on the link starts the attack. The victim's phone rings, and the gateway then initiates a call to another phone number. The victim thinks he is receiving a call, but actually he is making a VOIP call from his home gateway.
There are at least a couple scenarios for how a hacker could capitalize on the flaw. If the broadband subscriber thinks he is receiving a call from his bank, the person on the other end could persuade the victim to give up his bank account numbers.
The attacker could also make the victim's computer call a premium-rate phone line controlled by the hacker, who would receive a fee every time the number is called.
Pastor posted proof-of-concept code for the attack on a Web page. However, it wasn't immediately apparent if it works, as visitors would have to use BT's Home Hub with the correct software version.
BT said it's unlikely that the attack scenarios described by Pastor and Petkov could affect its customers, and no customers have reported such an attack, a BT spokesman said.
Nevertheless, the company is in the process of rolling out a patch that is automatically installed by the Home Hub, the spokesman said.
Pastor's public disclosure of the flaw on the blog is "highly irresponsible," the spokesman said.
How vulnerabilities are disclosed has often pitted security researchers -- and other proficient coders who drift more toward the hacking side -- against companies whose products or services are affected. GNUCitizen describes itself on its Web site as an "ethical hacker outfit."
Efforts to reach Pastor were unsuccessful.
Microsoft steps up assault on virtualization
Microsoft has laid out plans to become a bigger force in the market for virtualization software, stepping up its assault on established leaders such as VMware.
The plans announced Monday include the acquisition of a start-up company, Calista Technologies, whose graphics technology is designed to improve the end-user experience for people who access their Windows desktop remotely from a server, Microsoft said.
The company also loosened some of its licensing terms related to virtualization. Consumers who use the Home Basic and Home Premium editions of Windows Vista will now be able to run those OSes in a virtualized environment, Microsoft said. It also announced new licensing rates for corporate users.
Finally, Microsoft extended its partnership with Citrix Systems to make that company's Xen virtualization software work better with Microsoft's server and desktop software, it said.
Virtualization technologies separate the software on a computer from its underlying hardware, allowing it to be deployed in more flexible ways. Virtualization can allow multiple operating systems to run on one computer, for example, or allow application workloads to be shifted between computers more easily to improve hardware utilization.
The technology has been around for decades but was popularized in server environments recently by VMware and others. More recently, Apple introduced virtualization for its Macintosh desktops so that users can run both the Mac OS and Windows on the same machine.
Microsoft has not been a significant player in virtualization, but it hopes to change that with its announcements this week. It plans to discuss the changes at its Virtualization Deployment Summit, a two-day event for 300 of its customers and partners that starts Tuesday.
It argued that the virtualization market remains open for newer players like itself.
“Very few customers are able to reap the benefits of virtualization today,” Bob Muglia, senior vice present of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business, said in a statement. “We estimate that less than five percent of companies are utilizing virtualization technology because it is simply too cost-prohibitive and complex."
Microsoft's strategy will be to offer a full range of virtualization products, including desktop, server and management software, and do so at a competitive price, Muglia said.
Customers with the Home and Home Premium editions of Vista can now run them as a guest operating system on a virtual machine, the company said. Among other things, that should mean that Apple Mac users who want to run Vista alongside the Mac OS can now do so without having to buy a more expensive version of Windows.
For businesses, customers who subscribe to Microsoft's Software Assurance maintenance program can now get an annual subscription to Microsoft's desktop virtualization software for US$23 per desktop, the company said.
Citrix is developing a software tool that will make it easier for customers to transfer virtual machines between Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. A test version of the tool will be available in the second quarter, and the final version will be released along with Hyper-V, Microsoft said.
The technology from Calista aims to improve the experience for people who access their Windows desktops remotely from a server. It allows people to view multimedia content on a PC or thin client without the media player or software codecs they would normally need installed.
Microsoft will add Calista's graphics technology to future virtualization products, it said. Calista, of San Jose, California, is now a Microsoft subsidiary.
The plans announced Monday include the acquisition of a start-up company, Calista Technologies, whose graphics technology is designed to improve the end-user experience for people who access their Windows desktop remotely from a server, Microsoft said.
The company also loosened some of its licensing terms related to virtualization. Consumers who use the Home Basic and Home Premium editions of Windows Vista will now be able to run those OSes in a virtualized environment, Microsoft said. It also announced new licensing rates for corporate users.
Finally, Microsoft extended its partnership with Citrix Systems to make that company's Xen virtualization software work better with Microsoft's server and desktop software, it said.
Virtualization technologies separate the software on a computer from its underlying hardware, allowing it to be deployed in more flexible ways. Virtualization can allow multiple operating systems to run on one computer, for example, or allow application workloads to be shifted between computers more easily to improve hardware utilization.
The technology has been around for decades but was popularized in server environments recently by VMware and others. More recently, Apple introduced virtualization for its Macintosh desktops so that users can run both the Mac OS and Windows on the same machine.
Microsoft has not been a significant player in virtualization, but it hopes to change that with its announcements this week. It plans to discuss the changes at its Virtualization Deployment Summit, a two-day event for 300 of its customers and partners that starts Tuesday.
It argued that the virtualization market remains open for newer players like itself.
“Very few customers are able to reap the benefits of virtualization today,” Bob Muglia, senior vice present of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business, said in a statement. “We estimate that less than five percent of companies are utilizing virtualization technology because it is simply too cost-prohibitive and complex."
Microsoft's strategy will be to offer a full range of virtualization products, including desktop, server and management software, and do so at a competitive price, Muglia said.
Customers with the Home and Home Premium editions of Vista can now run them as a guest operating system on a virtual machine, the company said. Among other things, that should mean that Apple Mac users who want to run Vista alongside the Mac OS can now do so without having to buy a more expensive version of Windows.
For businesses, customers who subscribe to Microsoft's Software Assurance maintenance program can now get an annual subscription to Microsoft's desktop virtualization software for US$23 per desktop, the company said.
Citrix is developing a software tool that will make it easier for customers to transfer virtual machines between Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. A test version of the tool will be available in the second quarter, and the final version will be released along with Hyper-V, Microsoft said.
The technology from Calista aims to improve the experience for people who access their Windows desktops remotely from a server. It allows people to view multimedia content on a PC or thin client without the media player or software codecs they would normally need installed.
Microsoft will add Calista's graphics technology to future virtualization products, it said. Calista, of San Jose, California, is now a Microsoft subsidiary.
Domino, Lotus roadmap revealed
The next version of Lotus Notes and Domino will ship in February and will feature an array of updates, including a new Web 2.0-style feature called My Widgets, IBM said Monday during its Lotusphere show in Orlando, Florida.
Lotus users will have a new panel for different types of widgets. Their interaction with the mini-programs will be enhanced through a technology, Live Text, that can analyze text, spot patterns and phrases and then link them to a widget that could be useful. For example, users could receive information about flights after clicking a flight number in an e-mail, IBM said in a statement.
The Lotus Notes and Domino 8.0.1 release will also include Lotus Notes Traveler. The application will be able to push e-mail -- including associated content like attachments and calendars -- to Windows Mobile devices, IBM said.
In addition, IBM unveiled a new e-mail security appliance, IBM Lotus Protector for Mail Security; and said the fourth beta of its free desktop software suite, Lotus Symphony, will be available by the end of this month.
Symphony has seen more than 400,000 users download the English version, IBM said. The software is available in 24 languages overall. IBM said a new plug-in, WebSphere Translation Server, will be available on the Symphony community site. The tool can provide real-time translation of content created in Symphony, according to IBM.
IBM also looked further down the road, saying that Lotus Domino Designer 8.5 will feature more Web 2.0-style capabilities, such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) programming, and RSS or ATOM content feeds.
The company's news comes as rival Microsoft is crowing about its success in luring Lotus users to its unified communications and collaboration platform.
Also Monday, IBM company also announced its Open Collaboration Client Solution will come in a version compatible with the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system.
The Open Collaboration Client Solution bundles together Lotus Notes; the Lotus Sametime messaging platform; Lotus Symphony; WebSphere Portal; the Lotus Connections social networking software; Lotus Quickr, document management and collaboration software for teams; and Lotus Expeditor, an Eclipse-based development environment.
In addition, IBM and Red Hat announced a new partnership aimed at SMBs. The companies plan to sell an offering that combines Red Hat's Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform and Enterprise Linux Desktop with IBM's Lotus Notes client, Symphony and Domino server.
Lotus users will have a new panel for different types of widgets. Their interaction with the mini-programs will be enhanced through a technology, Live Text, that can analyze text, spot patterns and phrases and then link them to a widget that could be useful. For example, users could receive information about flights after clicking a flight number in an e-mail, IBM said in a statement.
The Lotus Notes and Domino 8.0.1 release will also include Lotus Notes Traveler. The application will be able to push e-mail -- including associated content like attachments and calendars -- to Windows Mobile devices, IBM said.
In addition, IBM unveiled a new e-mail security appliance, IBM Lotus Protector for Mail Security; and said the fourth beta of its free desktop software suite, Lotus Symphony, will be available by the end of this month.
Symphony has seen more than 400,000 users download the English version, IBM said. The software is available in 24 languages overall. IBM said a new plug-in, WebSphere Translation Server, will be available on the Symphony community site. The tool can provide real-time translation of content created in Symphony, according to IBM.
IBM also looked further down the road, saying that Lotus Domino Designer 8.5 will feature more Web 2.0-style capabilities, such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) programming, and RSS or ATOM content feeds.
The company's news comes as rival Microsoft is crowing about its success in luring Lotus users to its unified communications and collaboration platform.
Also Monday, IBM company also announced its Open Collaboration Client Solution will come in a version compatible with the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system.
The Open Collaboration Client Solution bundles together Lotus Notes; the Lotus Sametime messaging platform; Lotus Symphony; WebSphere Portal; the Lotus Connections social networking software; Lotus Quickr, document management and collaboration software for teams; and Lotus Expeditor, an Eclipse-based development environment.
In addition, IBM and Red Hat announced a new partnership aimed at SMBs. The companies plan to sell an offering that combines Red Hat's Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform and Enterprise Linux Desktop with IBM's Lotus Notes client, Symphony and Domino server.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
IBM acquires company to chase Microsoft in SMB market
IBM boosted its software portfolio for small and medium-size businesses with plans announced Friday to acquire Net Integration Technologies, a software vendor in Markham, Canada.
Net Integration Technologies, which offers business management tools, will be become part of IBM's Lotus division when the deal closes, which is expected to occur this quarter. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
"We plan to use the technology to go after Microsoft in the small business server market," said Michael Rhodin, general manager at IBM's Lotus Software division during a conference call about the acquisition. IBM could use the technology to compete with Microsoft's Windows Small Business Server, which provides collaboration, e-mail and communication tools.
Founded in 1997, Net Integration Technologies' tools include NitixBlue server software, which the company offers bundled with IBM Lotus Notes client software. The company also builds custom hardware and the Nitix Operating System, which is based on Linux and bundles system management, networking, security and storage services.
When Lotus was acquired by IBM in 1995, it was a great channel company in touch with SMBs, Rhodin said. "Somewhere along the lines we lost touch with the roots," he said.
The Net Integration Technologies acquisition is also in line with IBM's process of realigning operations to better define and serve customers. The company recently restructured sales operations and is lining up offerings to match those changes, Rhodin said.
IBM did not comment on any potential layoffs or relocation of Net Integration Technologies employees.
Net Integration Technologies, which offers business management tools, will be become part of IBM's Lotus division when the deal closes, which is expected to occur this quarter. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
"We plan to use the technology to go after Microsoft in the small business server market," said Michael Rhodin, general manager at IBM's Lotus Software division during a conference call about the acquisition. IBM could use the technology to compete with Microsoft's Windows Small Business Server, which provides collaboration, e-mail and communication tools.
Founded in 1997, Net Integration Technologies' tools include NitixBlue server software, which the company offers bundled with IBM Lotus Notes client software. The company also builds custom hardware and the Nitix Operating System, which is based on Linux and bundles system management, networking, security and storage services.
When Lotus was acquired by IBM in 1995, it was a great channel company in touch with SMBs, Rhodin said. "Somewhere along the lines we lost touch with the roots," he said.
The Net Integration Technologies acquisition is also in line with IBM's process of realigning operations to better define and serve customers. The company recently restructured sales operations and is lining up offerings to match those changes, Rhodin said.
IBM did not comment on any potential layoffs or relocation of Net Integration Technologies employees.
CIA says hackers pulled plug on power grid
Criminals have been able to hack into computer systems via the Internet and cut power to several cities, a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency analyst said this week.
Speaking at a conference of security professionals on Wednesday, CIA analyst Tom Donahue disclosed the recently declassified attacks while offering few specifics on what actually went wrong.
Criminals have launched online attacks that disrupted power equipment in several regions outside of the U.S., he said, without identifying the countries affected. The goal of the attacks was extortion, he said.
"We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands," he said in a statement posted to the Web on Friday by the conference's organizers, the SANS Institute. "In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
"According to Mr. Donahue, the CIA actively and thoroughly considered the benefits and risks of making this information public, and came down on the side of disclosure," SANS said in the statement.
One conference attendee said the disclosure came as news to many of the government and industry security professionals in attendance. "It appeared that there were a lot of people who didn't know this already," said the attendee, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak with the press.
He confirmed SANS' report of the talk. "There were apparently a couple of incidents where extortionists cut off power to several cities using some sort of attack on the power grid, and it does not appear to be a physical attack," he said.
Hacking the power grid made front-page headlines in September when CNN aired a video showing an Idaho National Laboratory demonstration of a software attack on the computer system used to control a power generator. In the demonstration, the smoking generator was rendered inoperable.
The U.S. is taking steps to lock down the computers that manage its power systems, however.
On Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved new mandatory standards designed to improve cybersecurity.
CIA representatives could not be reached immediately for comment.
Speaking at a conference of security professionals on Wednesday, CIA analyst Tom Donahue disclosed the recently declassified attacks while offering few specifics on what actually went wrong.
Criminals have launched online attacks that disrupted power equipment in several regions outside of the U.S., he said, without identifying the countries affected. The goal of the attacks was extortion, he said.
"We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands," he said in a statement posted to the Web on Friday by the conference's organizers, the SANS Institute. "In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
"According to Mr. Donahue, the CIA actively and thoroughly considered the benefits and risks of making this information public, and came down on the side of disclosure," SANS said in the statement.
One conference attendee said the disclosure came as news to many of the government and industry security professionals in attendance. "It appeared that there were a lot of people who didn't know this already," said the attendee, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak with the press.
He confirmed SANS' report of the talk. "There were apparently a couple of incidents where extortionists cut off power to several cities using some sort of attack on the power grid, and it does not appear to be a physical attack," he said.
Hacking the power grid made front-page headlines in September when CNN aired a video showing an Idaho National Laboratory demonstration of a software attack on the computer system used to control a power generator. In the demonstration, the smoking generator was rendered inoperable.
The U.S. is taking steps to lock down the computers that manage its power systems, however.
On Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved new mandatory standards designed to improve cybersecurity.
CIA representatives could not be reached immediately for comment.
Royal Navy loses laptop with data on 600,000 people
A laptop containing personal information on about 600,000 people was stolen from an officer in the Royal Navy, the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense said on Friday.
The laptop contained information about new and potential recruits to the Royal Marines, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, and was stolen in Birmingham last week, the ministry said.
The stolen data includes passport details, national insurance numbers, family details and doctors' addresses for people who submitted an application to the forces, the ministry said. The laptop also contained bank details for at least 3,500 people.
"The Ministry of Defence is treating the loss of this data with the utmost seriousness," it said in a statement.
It is writing to people whose bank details were on the laptop and has notified the Association for Payment Clearing Services to watch for unauthorized access, it said.
The ministry is investigating the theft with the West Midlands Police. The laptop was stolen Jan. 10, but the ministry said it didn't disclose the incident immediately for fear of compromising the investigation. It decided to go public with the loss after media reports surfaced about it on Friday, it said.
The laptop was stolen during the night from the car of a junior Royal Navy officer, who now faces a possible court martial, according to a report in the London Times.
This is the latest in a string of data security lapses in Britain that have embarrassed the government and called into question its plan to create a central database of patient records for the National Health Service.
In November, Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs lost two CDs containing personal data on about 25 million Britons. The discs, which were encrypted and password-protected, were sent via interoffice mail and never arrived.
The following month, the Driving Standards Agency said it lost a disc containing the records of 3 million learner drivers, and soon after that the Department of Health said that nine of its regional NHS trusts had lost patient data, including medical records for about 160,000 children in East London.
Des Brown, the U.K. defense secretary, will make a statement to Parliament about the latest incident early next week, the Defense Ministry said. It did not say if the information on the Navy's laptop was encrypted or protected by password.
People who think they have been affected can send an e-mail to recruitdata@check.mod.uk from Saturday at 10 a.m. U.K. time onward, the ministry said.
The laptop contained information about new and potential recruits to the Royal Marines, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, and was stolen in Birmingham last week, the ministry said.
The stolen data includes passport details, national insurance numbers, family details and doctors' addresses for people who submitted an application to the forces, the ministry said. The laptop also contained bank details for at least 3,500 people.
"The Ministry of Defence is treating the loss of this data with the utmost seriousness," it said in a statement.
It is writing to people whose bank details were on the laptop and has notified the Association for Payment Clearing Services to watch for unauthorized access, it said.
The ministry is investigating the theft with the West Midlands Police. The laptop was stolen Jan. 10, but the ministry said it didn't disclose the incident immediately for fear of compromising the investigation. It decided to go public with the loss after media reports surfaced about it on Friday, it said.
The laptop was stolen during the night from the car of a junior Royal Navy officer, who now faces a possible court martial, according to a report in the London Times.
This is the latest in a string of data security lapses in Britain that have embarrassed the government and called into question its plan to create a central database of patient records for the National Health Service.
In November, Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs lost two CDs containing personal data on about 25 million Britons. The discs, which were encrypted and password-protected, were sent via interoffice mail and never arrived.
The following month, the Driving Standards Agency said it lost a disc containing the records of 3 million learner drivers, and soon after that the Department of Health said that nine of its regional NHS trusts had lost patient data, including medical records for about 160,000 children in East London.
Des Brown, the U.K. defense secretary, will make a statement to Parliament about the latest incident early next week, the Defense Ministry said. It did not say if the information on the Navy's laptop was encrypted or protected by password.
People who think they have been affected can send an e-mail to recruitdata@check.mod.uk from Saturday at 10 a.m. U.K. time onward, the ministry said.
Customers trust MicroStrategy's independent status
With consolidation at a fever pitch in the enterprise business intelligence (BI) market, it would be understandable if MicroStrategy customers felt nervous, given that the vendor remains as one of the market's few independents.
After all, Business Objects now has the support of new parent company SAP, thanks to a US$6.7 billion acquisition, while Hyperion is now part of Oracle, which spent $3.3 billion to buy it. Meanwhile, IBM is expected to soon finalize its $5 billion purchase of Cognos.
Yet, MicroStrategy customers interviewed at the company's MicroStrategy World 2008 conference in Miami expressed confidence in the vendor and said its independent status gives it certain advantages over Business Objects, Hyperion and Cognos.
In particular, several customers said they like that MicroStrategy will remain free of pressures stemming from having to prioritize supporting complementary products from a parent company and, conversely, diluting support for similar products from competing companies.
Lindsey Aubuchon, MIS director at W.E. Aubuchon Co., which operates hardware stores in New England, said her company likes to have flexibility to mix and match IT products as it sees fit, creating multi-vendor environments to achieve its desired implementations. "My company likes to have openness to choose what they want," said Aubuchon, whose employer has been a MicroStrategy customer for about seven years.
Consequently, she nodded in agreement when MicroStrategy's CEO Michael Saylor said in his keynote at the event that the vendor strives to be agnostic and neutral with respect to making its products work with complementary wares from other vendors.
"Our view is to be Switzerland in this business, and to make sure we protect your investment when we give you the ability to tap into lots of different vendors and technology architectures to achieve your goal," Saylor said.
He predicted that Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion will see their product roadmaps re-routed based on competitive considerations handed down by their new parent companies.
As an independent, MicroStrategy will continue to support a wide variety of complementary, third-party products, such as Web browsers, operating systems, processors, databases and application servers, based on the needs of its customers and on market dynamics, Saylor said. "The market needs a vendor that provides the flexibility we can provide," he said.
Phillip Julian, sales operations and senior data management analyst at Inspire Pharmaceuticals in Durham, North Carolina, is all for product agnosticism and flexibility in IT vendors. The company recently acquired the MicroStrategy software to generate better, more interactive and visually appealing reports, he said. Until now, Inspire had been analyzing data with SAS Institute data-mining software and creating reports with Microsoft's Excel.
"We're doing it so we get into really good technology that would help us grow," Julian said. "I want to move us into another generation [of reporting software] where we're looking at something that's more graphical, more visual. We need to have something that the VP of sales and the sales force can understand."
Similar expectations led Robeks, a chain of fruit juice establishments, to make a hefty investment in the MicroStrategy platform, which it is in the process of implementing. With most of its presence in the U.S. West Coast, Manhattan Beach, California-based Robeks is looking to grow significantly in other parts of the U.S. and the world in the coming years, and, to support those efforts, it needs better reporting and analysis tools than the in-house ones it currently uses.
"Being able to analyze [sales and marketing] data more accurately will help us grow the business. We're in a very quick growth mode right now," said IS Director Pete Carvajal.
As a new customer, he was interested in hearing Saylor address the recent wave of market consolidation to find out what MicroStrategy's position is. "Them emphasizing that they're one of the players in the market that's not in the middle of all the turmoil of all the consolidation was good to hear and to understand what the future is," he said.
"It's important for them to come out and indicate the whys and whens of their business model moving forward. This is a huge investment for my company, and the last thing I want to do is spend all this time and money in an application that gets absorbed by a bigger company and maybe disappears," Carvajal said.
After all, Business Objects now has the support of new parent company SAP, thanks to a US$6.7 billion acquisition, while Hyperion is now part of Oracle, which spent $3.3 billion to buy it. Meanwhile, IBM is expected to soon finalize its $5 billion purchase of Cognos.
Yet, MicroStrategy customers interviewed at the company's MicroStrategy World 2008 conference in Miami expressed confidence in the vendor and said its independent status gives it certain advantages over Business Objects, Hyperion and Cognos.
In particular, several customers said they like that MicroStrategy will remain free of pressures stemming from having to prioritize supporting complementary products from a parent company and, conversely, diluting support for similar products from competing companies.
Lindsey Aubuchon, MIS director at W.E. Aubuchon Co., which operates hardware stores in New England, said her company likes to have flexibility to mix and match IT products as it sees fit, creating multi-vendor environments to achieve its desired implementations. "My company likes to have openness to choose what they want," said Aubuchon, whose employer has been a MicroStrategy customer for about seven years.
Consequently, she nodded in agreement when MicroStrategy's CEO Michael Saylor said in his keynote at the event that the vendor strives to be agnostic and neutral with respect to making its products work with complementary wares from other vendors.
"Our view is to be Switzerland in this business, and to make sure we protect your investment when we give you the ability to tap into lots of different vendors and technology architectures to achieve your goal," Saylor said.
He predicted that Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion will see their product roadmaps re-routed based on competitive considerations handed down by their new parent companies.
As an independent, MicroStrategy will continue to support a wide variety of complementary, third-party products, such as Web browsers, operating systems, processors, databases and application servers, based on the needs of its customers and on market dynamics, Saylor said. "The market needs a vendor that provides the flexibility we can provide," he said.
Phillip Julian, sales operations and senior data management analyst at Inspire Pharmaceuticals in Durham, North Carolina, is all for product agnosticism and flexibility in IT vendors. The company recently acquired the MicroStrategy software to generate better, more interactive and visually appealing reports, he said. Until now, Inspire had been analyzing data with SAS Institute data-mining software and creating reports with Microsoft's Excel.
"We're doing it so we get into really good technology that would help us grow," Julian said. "I want to move us into another generation [of reporting software] where we're looking at something that's more graphical, more visual. We need to have something that the VP of sales and the sales force can understand."
Similar expectations led Robeks, a chain of fruit juice establishments, to make a hefty investment in the MicroStrategy platform, which it is in the process of implementing. With most of its presence in the U.S. West Coast, Manhattan Beach, California-based Robeks is looking to grow significantly in other parts of the U.S. and the world in the coming years, and, to support those efforts, it needs better reporting and analysis tools than the in-house ones it currently uses.
"Being able to analyze [sales and marketing] data more accurately will help us grow the business. We're in a very quick growth mode right now," said IS Director Pete Carvajal.
As a new customer, he was interested in hearing Saylor address the recent wave of market consolidation to find out what MicroStrategy's position is. "Them emphasizing that they're one of the players in the market that's not in the middle of all the turmoil of all the consolidation was good to hear and to understand what the future is," he said.
"It's important for them to come out and indicate the whys and whens of their business model moving forward. This is a huge investment for my company, and the last thing I want to do is spend all this time and money in an application that gets absorbed by a bigger company and maybe disappears," Carvajal said.
230 retailers affected by data breach after tape lost
A backup tape containing credit-card information from hundreds of U.S. retailers is missing, forcing the company responsible for the data to warn customers that they may become the targets of data fraud.
GE Money, which manages in-store credit-card programs for the majority of U.S. retailers, first realized that the tape was missing from an Iron Mountain secure storage facility in October, said Richard Jones, a company spokesman. "We were informed that one of the tapes could not be located. But at the same time there was no record of it ever having been checked out," he said.
The tape contained in-store credit-card information on 650,000 retail customers, including those of J.C. Penney, he said. GE Money employees are also affected by the breach.
The missing backup tape was unencrypted.
Although J.C. Penney was the only company that Jones would confirm as affected by the missing tape, that retailer accounts for just a small percentage of all accounts that were compromised. In total, 230 retailers are affected by the breach. "Clearly that number includes many of the national retail organizations," he said.
The tape also contained Social Security numbers of 150,000 customers. When matched with name and address information, Social Security numbers can be used to set up fraudulent credit-card accounts, a common form of identity theft.
Jones said that following a GE Money investigation, there is no evidence that the tape in question has been stolen or that the data it contained was misused.
After reconstructing the data that was on the missing tape, GE Money began sending out letters to those affected by the breach in December. The company has set up a toll-free number and is offering one year of free credit monitoring services to those affected by the breach.
In 2006, retailer TJ Maxx discovered that thieves had broken into its computer networks, stealing an estimated 94 million credit- and debit-card numbers. Costs related to that breach are expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
GE Money is a division of General Electric.
GE Money, which manages in-store credit-card programs for the majority of U.S. retailers, first realized that the tape was missing from an Iron Mountain secure storage facility in October, said Richard Jones, a company spokesman. "We were informed that one of the tapes could not be located. But at the same time there was no record of it ever having been checked out," he said.
The tape contained in-store credit-card information on 650,000 retail customers, including those of J.C. Penney, he said. GE Money employees are also affected by the breach.
The missing backup tape was unencrypted.
Although J.C. Penney was the only company that Jones would confirm as affected by the missing tape, that retailer accounts for just a small percentage of all accounts that were compromised. In total, 230 retailers are affected by the breach. "Clearly that number includes many of the national retail organizations," he said.
The tape also contained Social Security numbers of 150,000 customers. When matched with name and address information, Social Security numbers can be used to set up fraudulent credit-card accounts, a common form of identity theft.
Jones said that following a GE Money investigation, there is no evidence that the tape in question has been stolen or that the data it contained was misused.
After reconstructing the data that was on the missing tape, GE Money began sending out letters to those affected by the breach in December. The company has set up a toll-free number and is offering one year of free credit monitoring services to those affected by the breach.
In 2006, retailer TJ Maxx discovered that thieves had broken into its computer networks, stealing an estimated 94 million credit- and debit-card numbers. Costs related to that breach are expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
GE Money is a division of General Electric.
FBI warns of rise in phone-based 'vishing' attacks
With consumers finally getting wise to phishing attacks, scammers are hitting the phones.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warned Thursday that so-called "vishing" attacks are on the rise. These are scams where criminals send an e-mail or text message to a victim, saying there has been a security problem and the victim needs to call his or her bank to reactivate a credit or debit card.
"Upon calling the telephone number, the recipient is greeted with 'Welcome to the bank of ...' and then [is] requested to enter their card number in order to resolve a pending security issue," the IC3 said in its alert.
In the past few years, inexpensive VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology and open-source call-center software has made it inexpensive for scammers to set up phony call centers, paving the way for these new types of scams. Security experts say that vishing can be more effective than traditional phishing techniques -- which direct victims to fake Web sites -- because the voice-based attacks have not been as widely publicized.
A new vishing scam involves sending text messages to cell phones, instructing victims to contact the fake online bank to renew their accounts, the IC3 said.
Those who are unsure whether they have been targeted by this scam should look up the bank's phone number and call the bank directly, the IC3 advises.
Operated in partnership with the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, the IC3 is a clearing house for Internet crime complaints.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warned Thursday that so-called "vishing" attacks are on the rise. These are scams where criminals send an e-mail or text message to a victim, saying there has been a security problem and the victim needs to call his or her bank to reactivate a credit or debit card.
"Upon calling the telephone number, the recipient is greeted with 'Welcome to the bank of ...' and then [is] requested to enter their card number in order to resolve a pending security issue," the IC3 said in its alert.
In the past few years, inexpensive VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology and open-source call-center software has made it inexpensive for scammers to set up phony call centers, paving the way for these new types of scams. Security experts say that vishing can be more effective than traditional phishing techniques -- which direct victims to fake Web sites -- because the voice-based attacks have not been as widely publicized.
A new vishing scam involves sending text messages to cell phones, instructing victims to contact the fake online bank to renew their accounts, the IC3 said.
Those who are unsure whether they have been targeted by this scam should look up the bank's phone number and call the bank directly, the IC3 advises.
Operated in partnership with the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, the IC3 is a clearing house for Internet crime complaints.
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